Powerful though the _Glatton’s_ turret appeared, the experimental turret on the same pattern fired upon at Portland by the 21-ton gun of the _Hotspur_ suffered somewhat badly. The shot struck the turret at the horizontal joint of the upper and lower plates, forcing the upper plate and the lower plate apart and damaging the turret generally. A series of breastwork monitors was added to the Navy in the late ’sixties. Besides the _Magdala_, _Cerberus_ and _Abyssinia_ for colonial coast and harbour defence, the Admiralty ordered four similar but larger vessels for home defence, much to the general surprise. For some unfathomable reason the _Cerberus_ and _Magdala_ were barque-rigged. False bows and sterns were added to them to enable them to make the voyages to their respective destinations. They carried two 18-ton guns in each of their turrets. On her outward voyage the _Cerberus_ earned a reputation for rolling which she never lost. The first reports of her voyage as far as Gibraltar described it as being successful and prosperous, but when her commander’s report was received it showed that the voyage was successful in the sense that the ship succeeded in getting that far, but prosperous it never was. She had dirty weather in crossing the Bay of Biscay, and for twelve hours rolled so heavily that it was thought she would not get through it. It is said she rolled 40 degrees each way, which is far more than the _Captain_ rolled, and she pitched so heavily that sometimes the whole fore part of the ship as far as the foremast would be lost sight of, and the decks be quite under water. She was very slow under steam, the utmost speed that could be got out of her being six knots. The crew detested her so thoroughly that they deserted whenever they found the opportunity, three of them had to be punished and sent to prison by way of example by the time Malta was reached, and six volunteered to go to prison rather than continue the voyage. However, she arrived at Melbourne at last, and lay year in and year out at her moorings in Hobson’s Bay except for such short intervals when she went down the bay for firing practice. One of the war scares which arise from time to time came near to conferring on the _Cerberus_ a celebrity of a unique character. Irresponsible and irrepressible politicians of a sort find colonial life offers them more scope for the display of their exuberance, and as the scare revived the question whether the defences of Melbourne at Queenscliffe were sufficiently strong, a politician of this variety proposed that the _Cerberus_ should be sent out to sea and then endeavour to steam back past the batteries, which should fire upon her, in order to test both her armour and the strength of the defences. Strange to say, this suggestion actually met with some support, notwithstanding the chorus of ridicule and protests with which it was received, but the common-sense of the community vetoed the proposition.